Starting with a simple idea that could theoretically be completed by a simple task, but as you implement it, reality complicates and sends you off on many deviations from the original straight and narrow path.
Yak shaving could be required and unknown at the beginning, or it could be a lack of discipline leading to scope creep - often it’s both
The famous Malcolm in the middle scene for ref: https://youtu.be/AbSehcT19u0?si=Pchmbf3509l1CbeQ - but the term was originally coined from elsewhere: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving
I fucking hate Spring.
The quickest way to get a team of 10 contractors to turn 100 lines of basic code from a decent engineer into 2k, with 50 janky vulnerable dependencies, that needs to be babied with customized ide’s and multi-minute+ build times and 60m long recorded meetings.
Fuck Spring.